


Post-It Notes and Pregnancy Tests

by Gluten_Full



Series: Everyone Lives AU [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Adulthood, Everybody Lives, F/M, Future Fic, No demigod problems, just adult problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22459132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gluten_Full/pseuds/Gluten_Full
Summary: Clarisse didn’t look pregnant. She jogged next to Silena without seeming winded or tired. She didn’t even look like she had gained any weight. But Silena was sure of her conclusions, and it was time to do what she did best.Make Clarisse la Rue face facts.(The everybody lives, adult, post-college AU where Chris, Clarisse, Beckendorf, Silena, Lee, Castor, and Pollux share one four bedroom, two bathroom apartment and have for eight years that no one asked for)
Relationships: Clarisse La Rue/Chris Rodriguez, Silena Beauregard & Clarisse la Rue, Silena Beauregard/Charles Beckendorf
Series: Everyone Lives AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1623709
Comments: 3
Kudos: 47





	Post-It Notes and Pregnancy Tests

Silena had an eye for detail. It’s what made her such an excellent wedding and party planner.

And that eye for detail had led her to one very important observation: her best friend was pregnant and didn’t know it yet.

Admittedly, Clarisse didn’t look pregnant. She jogged next to Silena, clearly at a slower pace than her usual to help Silena keep up, without seeming winded or tired. She didn’t even look like she had gained any weight. But Silena was sure of her conclusions, and it was time to do what she did best.

Make Clarisse la Rue face facts.

They were a block from their apartment building when Silena asked them to pause of a second, coming to a rest outside of the drug store. Silena leaned over and rested her hands on her knees, letting her head hang. She watched her breath fog up in the chill November air.

“Come on, princess, we’re almost home. You can run one more block,” Clarisse said. She had been gracious in agreeing to help Silena get in shape for her July wedding, foregoing her usual evening runs with Chris to run with Silena when she got home from teaching.

“I know I can,” she protested (although her heavy breathing threatened to betray her). “I want to stop in here,” she gestured to the drug store, “and get some more bridal magazines.”

Clarisse shrugged, “Alright, I’ll be out here.”

“You don’t want to come inside and warm up?”

Clarisse shook her head. “I’d rather freeze than watch you leaf through fifty magazines.” Silena nodded and walked inside.

She grabbed a few new bridal magazines (for work and personal use), and then a pregnancy test. (The cashier didn’t say anything about her purchase, but she still felt compelled to clarify that she was a wedding planner and also not pregnant.)

When she walked out, Clarisse was leaning against the wall. “Ready to go?” Silena asked. Clarisse turned to start running home. “Actually,” Silena stopped her, “I was hoping we could just walk. I want to talk to you about something.”

Clarisse looked at her accusatorially; Silena knew she thought she was just trying to get out of the last bit of running. But Clarisse complied, and they started back to their apartment.

“So what’s up?” Clarisse asked.

“You know how our periods are synchronized?” Silena asked. Eight years ago, when they were just starting to be friends, Clarisse probably would just rolled her eyes and walked away without answering the question. Now, at twenty-four years old and with eight years of Silena experience she didn’t even blink at the question.

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, I noticed that three weeks ago I got my period,”

“Good for you,”

Silena ignored the slight condescension and continued. “Well, I got my period, and you didn’t. And it’s been three weeks and you still haven’t gotten yours.”

“Silena -” Clarisse tried to interupt, but she continued. She pulled the pregnancy test out of her bag as they got closer to their building.

“Look, I know that you’re stubborn and don’t want a baby and all of that,”

“Silena -”

“But just take the test. I don’t want you to be one of those women on _I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant_.”

Clarisse took a deep breath as she unlocked the front door. “Fine, I will.”

When they got to their apartment, Silena shouted, “Anyone home?”

They all worked different hours, adding to the chaos of the four-bedroom apartment they had all shared since Silena and Clarisse’s freshman year.

Castor was the camera man for the nightly news, so he was usually out at four in the afternoon and back after midnight. Chris and Charlie worked normal business hours. Pollux was always out with some acting job or another; Lee helped his mom manage their movie theater in the Village, keeping him out late too. Silena and Clarisse were usually the only ones home this time of day, with Silena working from home unless she had an event or a meeting, and Clarisse got home from teaching teenagers the joys of American history at about 3:30.

After six years, though, they were all starting to pack up the apartment. They were all moving to the same building - they could never be that far from each other. The building was one of four “New Athens” buildings in the city. A demigod-safe building compete with free rent for Titan and Giant war vets. They couldn’t pass that up.

Plus, Silena and Charlie were getting married in nine months, and neither wanted to be a newly wed couple with five roommates.

Well, if Silena was right (which she was sure she was), soon to be six roommates.

Clarisse took the pregnancy test box from Silena when no one responded and walked into the bathroom.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Silena said through the door.

“I’m sure I can handle this on my own,”

“I’m just trying to be supportive,”

“Lena, this whole thing would be so much easier if you stopped talking to me,”

“There’s no reason to be nervous,”

“I’m not nervous! I just don’t like talking to people while I pee. Just please, walk away from the door,”

Silena sat on the couch and waited.

Clarisse walked out a moment later, and put the pregnancy test on the coffee table. “Alright, three minutes,” she set a timer on her phone and sat on the couch.

“Are you nervous?” Silena asked.

Clarisse shook her head, “No, I’m pretty sure I know what it’s gonna say.”

Silena took Clarisse’s hand. “Look it’s okay to be nervous,”

Clarisse looked her in the eye, “I’m not nervous,”

Silena huffed and dropped her hands. “Well, maybe you should be. Because you might be pregnant. That doesn’t make you nervous?”

Clarisse shrugged, “I already told you, I know what the test is going to say.”

“Yeah, well,” Silena sat back, “you’re extreme confidence can’t undo a pregnancy,”

“Silena -” Clarisse’s voice was soft and apologetic. But Silena cut her off again.

“No, no excuses. No ‘I know what it’s going to say.’ You’re three weeks late, there’s no denying that fact.”

“I’m not denying it! I’m trying to tell you -”

The time went off. Silena tilted her head towards the test. “Do you want to look at it?”

“You can look at it. I already told you, I know what it says,” Clarisse said.

Silena picked up the test. Two dark blue lines. No denying it now. She felt vindicated.

“Are you sure you’re sure?”

“Yes,”

Silena turned the test to face Clarisse, “Because it says you’re pregnant.”

Clarisse smiled, waiting for Silena to catch on, “I know.”

“You ...?” Silena threw the test at Clarisse, but she dodged it, and it clattered to the floor. “You bitch!” Silena yelled while smiling. “You already knew and you didn’t tell me?!” Silena leaned in and hugged her tight.

“I was trying to tell you, but you weren’t letting me get a word in!”

Silena pulled away, “How long have you known?”

“We’ve known for like a week,” Clarisse told her.

“We? You told Chris before you told me?”

Clarisse looked confused, “He’s the father!”

“And I’m your best friend!”

“Not the same.”

Silena barely agreed that she was less important than Chris in this situation. "But still, you’ve known for a week, and didn’t you tell me?”

“We haven’t really told anyone,” Clarisse said, “not even our parents. We’re waiting until I’m twelve weeks to make sure that everything is okay. There’s still a lot that could go wrong right now. So that means you can’t tell anyone.”

Silena rolled her eyes and smiled. “You know I always keep your secrets. But can I tell Chris that I know?”

Clarisse nodded, “We expected you to figure it out before we told you.”

“And you don’t think the guys will notices?”

Clarisse shook her head. “Men are clueless.”

“Wait,” Silena sat up straight. “When is it due?”

“Mid-June, so I won’t be pregnant for your wedding. I already checked.”

Silena relaxed back into the couch. “This is crazy. I mean, you don’t even have any pregnancy symptoms or anything.”

“Oh,” Clarisse corrected, “you were not in the Goode High School faculty bathroom this morning. Total blood bath.”

Silena shuddered, “Gross,” she said before perking back up. “If it’s a girl, can you name her after me?”

Clarisse rolled her eyes, “If it’s a girl we’re naming her after Chris’s mom.”

“What about middle name?”

Clarisse thought about it for a moment, “Maybe.”

“But I’m the godmother right?”

Clarisse smiled, “Of course,”

Silena squeezed and hugged Clarisse again. “Oh I am going to plan you the best baby shower of all time!”

Chris got home around six and walked into a familiar sight. Clarisse was at the table grading papers, Silena was flipping through one of her new bridal magazine.

“Hey Silena. Your wedding or someone else?” He asked pointing the magazine.

“Always both, Christopher, always both,” she said without looking up.

He walked over to Clarisse and kissed her hello. Silena watched them chat about their day for a few minutes, before Chris went to their bedroom to change.

Silena followed him; if Clarisse noticed, she didn’t show it, staying fixated on her students’ papers.

Silena walked in as Chris was pulling down his dress pants, which he quickly pulled back up. “Silena!”

“Oh it’s fine!” She said, walking in and sitting on his bed. He re-buttoned his pants, though, putting off getting changed until she left.

“What’s up?”

Silena smiled, “You’re having a baby,” She said in a sing-song voice.

Chris smiled but protested, “No, Clarisse is having a baby. I only contributed for like ten seconds.”

“Nope, nope,” Silena said, “you’re going to be a father, and, therefore, you are having a baby.”

Chris dug through his dresser drawer to find a pair of sweat pants and a tee shirt. “Well, I’m not the one who almost peed their pants on the subway last week,” He said.

Silena gasped and laughed, “She did not!”

Chris shut his eyes tight, regretting what he had said. “You probably shouldn’t tell her I told you that. She’ll kill me,”

“Oh she sure will.”

“Can you leave now so I can’t dressed?”

Before Silena could leave, Clarisse walked in.

“So she’s knows,” Chris said.

“She figured it out,” Clarisse said.

“You peed your pants on the subway?” Silena asked.

Clarisse glared at Chris, who glared at Silena. “Almost,” Clarisse protested, “almost is the operative word in that sentence. I used the alley like a grown up.”

Clarisse laid down on the bed, looking up at the ceiling. Silena laid down next to her, curling up into Clarisse’s side.

These platonic “cuddle puddles,” as Silena called them, immigrated into their apartment from the Aphrodite cabin, and had become a staple of their group friendship over the last few years.

Clarisse wrapped an arm around Silena and pulled her in close. Chris got on the other side of Clarisse, laying on his side, and propping his head up in one hand.

“So you can pee in an alley but not when I’m talking to you?” Silena asked.

Clarisse laughed. “That was a pee-mergency. You making me take a redundant pregnancy test was not.”

“What?” Chris asked.

Silena explained the events of the day, but she faltered as she got to the end. She noticed that Chris’s hand had rested on Clarisse’s abdomen and was rubbing small circles where he imagined the baby to be. Clarisse clearly wasn’t listening to Silena at all and was instead looking up and watching Chris’s face as he reacted to the story.

Silena suddenly felt very overwhelmed with positive emotion for the couple. She had been so excited for her friend and for her own prospects as a godmother and baby-shower-planner that she failed to notice just how happy her friends were. Chris and Clarisse (who just last Forth of July had both nearly gotten alcohol poisoning in a competition to see who could take more tequila shots, for god’s sake) seemed completely happy, content, and calm. They seemed ready for it, somehow, like a couple in their thirties who had been trying for half a decade. They hadn’t just accepted the reality that they were going to be parents. They were excited about it.

“Silena,” Chris said, “are you -”

Silena cut him off with a sudden sob. Clarise turned to look at her. the couple pulled her into a hug as she blubbered out: “I’m just so happy for you two!”

“We’re really happy too,” Clarisse said. Chris smiled, leaned down, and kissed her, only breaking it when that tender moment made Silena cry harder. Silena’s melodramatic happy crying only made the couple laugh.

The puddle of bodies on Chris and Clarisse’s bed, both laughing and crying, was the strange sight Beckendorf came home to. “Everything okay in here?”

“Charlie!” Silena said, still crying. She reached out her arms to him, encouraging him to join them all on the bed.

“Why are you crying?” He asked her, sitting on the bed up by their heads.

Silena wiped her eyes. “Oh, you know me, I’m always crying.” Silena had promised to keep their secret, and damnit she was going to.

Clarisse just smiled. “That’s not true,” she said. Clarisse leaned over Silena’s body to get to the night stand drawer. She opened it and pulled out a sonogram photo from the week before. There was hardly anything in the picture except for wavy black lines, but there was a little peanut shaped thing the doctors told them was their baby.

She held the picture up for Beckendorf to see. His eyes went wide, “No way!” Chris and Clarisse nodded. “Congrats you guys!”

Silena took the sonogram from him. “You didn’t show me this!” Silena said. “You know what, when I get pregnant, I’m not going to tell you for two weeks.” Silena told her.

Clarisse just laughed, “We both know that’s not true.”

Silena wanted to protest, but Clarisse was right.

“So who else knows?” Beckendorf asked.

“Just you two,” Clarisse said, “we wanted to wait to tell people until we were twelve weeks. Our parents don’t even know.”

“But can we really have four out of seven of us know and not tell the other three?” Chris asked.

Clarisse took the sonogram from SIlena. “Let’s just hang this on the fridge next to their wedding invitation and see how long it takes for them to figure it out.”

“Oh absolutely not,” Silena said, “they’ll think I’m pregnant. Here,” Silena took the sonogram back and stood up. She grabbed a post-it note and a pen, and wrote _Baby CR coming this June_! With an arrow pointing at the little peanut. “Now you can hang it up.” Silena handed it to Clarisse.

“CR?” Clarisse asked.

“You guys have the same initials. And ‘la Rue-Rodriguez’ is too long for a post-it note.”

“Do you wanna hang it up?” Chris asked.

“Can you do it?” Clarisse asked.

“You can’t do it?” he asked in response.

Clarisse shook her head, “No, you see, I am pregnant so ...”

“So you can’t get up and hang things on the fridge?” he teased.

She smiled and patted his cheek. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

Chris looked at Silena and Beckendorf. “This is going to be a long seven months for me, isn’t it?”

“Hey,” Clarisse protested, “I almost threw up in front of a room full of teenagers today. What did you do?”

“Helped keep a person charged with a first time drug offense from serving an over-inflated prison sentence.” Chris told her.

“That’s a really nice story, could you tell it to me while you’re making me something to eat?” Chris just laughed at her as he started to stand, but Silena took the sonogram and post-it from Clarisse and got off the bed first.

“How about this,” she offered, “I’ll hang it up, we’ll leave you two alone and order a pizza?”

Clarisse rolled over to look at Silena. “Is it too late for me to have your baby?”

Silena leaned down and kissed Clarisse’s cheek. “Unfortunately,” she said. She started out the door and Charlie followed her.

Silena hung the sonogram up the fridge, right next to her own wedding invitation and smiled.

“You know,” Charlie said, wrapping his arms around her from behind, “Chris and I can never tell if you and Clarisse are joking about you two leaving us for each other.”

Silena turned around and smiled. “It’s a joke for right now,” she said, “but should you and Chris ever prove to be unsatisfactory -”

Charlie grabbed her by the waist and sat her on the counter, situating himself in the V of her legs. “Well then,” he leaned in and kissed her, letting his hands trailed up her thighs, “I’d better keep you satisfied.”

Silena smiled against his mouth before asking. “When do you want to try and have a baby.”

Charlie pulled away and brushed some of her hair behind her ear. “Whenever you want.”

“You’re not just saying that so I don’t run away with Clarisse?”

“No, I promise,” he smiled and kissed her again.

“Well,” she said in between kisses, “we have two-hundred and seventy-one days until the wedding. So,” she kissed him again, “how about we start trying in,” and again, “two-hundred and seventy-two days?”

Charlie smiled and kissed her again, “Sounds like a plan,”

**Author's Note:**

> My goodness this was longer than I planned for it to be. It’s almost 3,000 words. Also I did that math, and their baby would be born in June of 2017. So the fanbaby is already two! 
> 
> If you’ve ready my other ChrisXClarisse baby headcanons, which take place in the normal time line, some of this is familiar. Although I did bump their ages up a year. in the original headcanons, they are both still in their respective graduate schools. Here, I moved them up a year. I just felt like if all their friends were alive, their twenties would be a little more fun and less melancholy, so they would be less likely to keep a baby they conceived while still in school, even if they are soon-to-be graduates. 
> 
> I also just really enjoyed exploring how Clarisse and Chris might be different (read: happier) had their friends never died. And what a relationship between Clarisse and Silena looks like nearly a decade later. (also sorry if it reads as queer-baity to anyone - the physical affection is based off of some of my own long-term female friendships. I am a queer woman so I am aware of how platonic physical female affection can sometimes read as fetishizing or queer baiting. But I didn’t want to leave it out, because I do believe that’s how their relationship to each other would develop had they been able to be friends for more than a year.)


End file.
